Emmett L. Bennett Jr.
Emmett L. Bennett Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 18, 1918 |
| Died | December 15, 2011 |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Cincinnati |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | classics and philology |
Emmett Leslie Bennett Jr. (July 18, 1918 – December 15, 2011) was an American classicist and philologist whose systematic catalog of its symbols led to the solution of reading Linear B, a 3,300-year-old syllabary used for writing Mycenaean Greek hundreds of years before the Greek alphabet was developed. Archaeologist Arthur Evans had discovered Linear B in 1900 during his excavations at Knossos on the Greek island of Crete and spent decades trying to comprehend its writings until his death in 1941. Bennett and Alice Kober cataloged the 80 symbols used in the script in his 1951 work The Pylos Tablets, which provided linguist John Chadwick and amateur scholar Michael Ventris with the vital clues needed to finally decipher Linear B in 1952.[1][2]
Bennett was born on July 18, 1918, in
After beginning his academic career at
Bennett died in Madison, Wisconsin at the age of 93.[1] He was survived by two daughters, three sons and four grandchildren.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Fox, Margalit. "Emmett L. Bennett Jr., Ancient Script Expert, Dies at 93", The New York Times, December 31, 2011. Accessed January 1, 2011.
- ^ University of TexasProgram in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory. Accessed January 1, 2012.
- ^ "Emmett L. Bennett, Jr". CAMWS. 2015-01-02. Retrieved 2021-07-24.
- ^ Wilkie, Nancy C. "From the President: Mycenae Gets the Gold" Archived 2008-12-06 at the Wayback Machine, Archaeology (magazine), Volume 54 Number 2, March/April 2001. Accessed January 1, 2012.
External links
- Emmett L. Bennett Jr. at the Database of Classical Scholars
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